A finalist for the National Book Award, Lost in the City features 15 poignant short stories, each set in Washington, D.C. Far removed from marble monuments and the offices of rich politicians, the nation's capital that Jones captures is inhabited by self-willed African-Americans struggling to live their lives as best they can.

The Known World

Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor, William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful white man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation, as well as of his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: A Novel

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness transports us across a subcontinent on a journey of many years. It takes us deep into the lives of its gloriously rendered characters, each of them in search of a place of safety - in search of meaning and of love.

Sister of Mine: A Novel

When two Union soldiers stumble onto a plantation in northern Georgia on a warm May day in 1864, the last thing they expect is to see the Union flag flying high - or to be greeted by a group of freed slaves and their Jewish mistress. Little do they know that this place has an unusual history. Twelve years prior, Adelaide Mannheim - daughter of Mordecai, the only Jewish planter in the county - was given her own maid, a young slave named Rachel. The two became friends, and soon they discovered a secret.

The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented. February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill.

Grace: A Novel

For a runaway slave in the 1840s South, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic master. That's what 15-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation. Striking out on her own, she leaves behind her beloved Momma and sister, Hazel, and takes refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a freewheeling, gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia.

Lillian Rodriguez says:"Excellent story of several women's journey"

Publisher's Summary

In 14 sweeping and sublime stories, five of which have been published in The New Yorker, the best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever.

Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens. All Aunt Hagar's Children turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them further north, people who in Jones' masterful hands, emerge as fully human and morally complex, whether they are country folk used to getting up with the chickens or people with centuries of education behind them.

In the title story, in which Jones employs the first-person rhythms of a classic detective story, a Korean War veteran investigates the death of a family friend whose sorry destiny seems inextricable from his mother's own violent Southern childhood. In "In the Blink of God's Eye" and "Tapestry", newly married couples leave behind the familiarity of rural life to pursue lives of urban promise, only to be challenged and disappointed.

With the legacy of slavery just a stone's throw away and the future uncertain, Jones' cornucopia of characters will haunt readers for years to come.

What the Critics Say

"Jones' stories are rich in detail and emotions." (Booklist) "A complex, sometimes somber collection....Each of its denizens comes through with his own particular ways and means for survival, often dependent on chance, and rendered with unsentimental sympathy and force." (Publishers Weekly)

Began listening to this and realized that "Lost in the City" comes first. So I switched. Loved the narrator. Enjoyed the first few hours. And I reviewed "The Known World" and thought it was wonderful. These books are all extremely well written and well read. "Lost in the City" has left me too stunned and far down to come back to this one. I need to bail to something more uplifting.

The voice of the narrator is enchanting and the stories are small worlds unto themselves. Listening to this book while attempting to do other things is dangerous because it so completely engages one's imagination. This is Jones's follow up to his earlier collection of stories called Lost in the City, and it provides both past and future to some of the earlier characters. But you don't need to have read Lost in the City to fully enjoy this book. Jones does for Washington, D.C. what Faulkner did for Yoknapatawpha.